LSU’s September was good enough on the scoreboard - three wins, one loss, and a place in the Top-15 all month - but the bigger story inside the program has been the injuries stacking up around it. With SEC play now here and seven straight conference games waiting to close the regular season, the Tigers are being pushed toward a new reality: depth matters, but versatility matters even more.
That shift has been forced by a string of setbacks that hit both sides of the ball. Wide receiver Phillip Wright Jr. and safety Dashawn Spears are done for the season.
Linebacker Charles Ross III, Whit Weeks and tight end Trey’Dez Green have all been injured in games and will miss time. For LSU, that has opened up not just starting jobs, but roles that demand players capable of doing more than one thing.
Green’s absence is the clearest example. He was supposed to be one of the offense’s most dangerous pieces, a top-ranked tight end with the kind of 6-foot-7 frame that makes him hard to defend. LSU doesn’t just need another tight end to replace him; it needs someone who can give the offense the same kind of flexibility, lining up as both a tight end and an outside receiver option.
That’s where Roman Mothershed comes in. The wide receiver made his LSU debut against McNeese and finished with two catches and a receiving touchdown.
He arrived from Troy as a receiver, but during fall camp he was moved to practice with the tight ends - the same spot he played against the Cowboys. At 6-foot-5, he brings a similar kind of matchup problem, and that size is what makes players like him so difficult for SEC defenses to handle.
On the other side of the ball, LSU has had to replace a very different kind of impact player in Weeks, who became a major problem for opposing quarterbacks. TJ Dottery, another transfer, has stepped into that void at weakside linebacker while also taking on the green dot duties as the defense’s play-caller. That makes him both a communicator and a play-maker, responsible for getting the calls out and helping slow down the other team’s offense.
Dottery’s first major turn in that role came after Weeks went down against Texas A&M with a fractured leg. He moved into the weak-side linebacker spot and helped hold the Aggies to only two field goals, while also coming up with a key pass breakup to stop one of their drives.
Weeks and Green both leave holes that are hard to fill, and LSU still does not have a set timeline for either return. But for now, Mothershed and Dottery have become the clearest answers to the Tigers’ latest problem - not just as replacements, but as players who can do more than one job when the season starts demanding it.
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LSU did beat McNeese State in an exhibition game, but the win came with only a limited number of players available. That is the larger issue hanging over the season outlook right now, because the Tigers are still waiting on multiple players to become eligible. Until that clears up, it is hard to know what LSUs actual ceiling looks like once the games start counting. [Read more 🡒]